The warhorse snorted beneath him with ever less patience.
Under better circumstances, the animal would have handled the weight well, it had been bred for that, but the mine outpost was not exactly a place where good feed was found, and winter did not help anyone either. To his luck, the walls were already drawing near and the return had been quiet. After everything the mine had charged from them, the road back had decided to behave like an ordinary road. No wandering Fallen, no cries in the night, there had only been the cold.
Behind him came Edvard, some servants and Dagny's warriors, all of them looked worn, it had not been a long journey, but it had been miserable enough to seem greater than it truly had been. As they approached the gate, Sahirid rose before him again, as always beautiful, vast and impossible.
From a distance, the city could still pass for some kind of pretty tale, one of those Nanna would have read to him on a rainy night, with the fire low and a tired voice. But things always dug deeper than the eyes could see. At the entrance, a red-faced merchant argued with a guard, he passed by them in time to feel the guard's hand extend with almost no discretion. The merchant raised an eyebrow, let out a resigned sigh and pulled from his clothes a small pouch meant for the bribe.
Along the way, similar scenes repeated themselves with small variations. Men arguing over coins barely worth the effort of a closed fist, women selling themselves for less than they deserved and more than they could refuse, just as children left to their own fate, running among adults too busy to notice them. To him the city still smelled of salt and sea, but now it also seemed to smell of something else; corruption.
Soon they crossed the second ring, and there it was better, or at least it seemed so, the streets were cleaner, the clothes more expensive, and calamities were hidden better. But Hrafn almost preferred the brutal honesty of the outer ring, where life bit your shin and moved on, in the second ring it smiled first and bit you worse.
The horses finally stopped before a great iron gate, just behind it there was a two-story manor, a well-kept garden, pale stone and elegant lines with a general air of nobility, this was his new property, though not fully. The agreement did not grant him immediate possession, only power for use, but that was already more than Hrafn would have been capable of imagining a few seasons earlier. Between the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, his life had seemed to change more than in all the previous years entire.
Dagny did not say much while accompanying him there, she merely nodded from atop the horse, dry as always, and went on with her men without wasting words. The servants who had come with him dismounted and opened the gate, inside there were already others waiting, very well lined up and well dressed. A gift from Alva, no doubt, and like almost all her gifts they probably came with a price.
Informants probably. He considered dismissing them, but the idea did not last long, for he himself knew what the life of a commoner was. Besides, he did not keep that many secrets, and taking the blessing into account, perhaps those same eyes and ears would end up serving him without even noticing.
Soon he entered, and the first thing that welcomed him was the smell of perfume and cleanliness. The wood inside was not darkened as in the houses of the outer ring. It was dark brown, polished and perhaps even treated by alchemy, there were also columns, stretches of stone and marble furniture displayed as status. A chandelier hung in the hall ceiling, probably more expensive than Hrafn's entire old house.
He cast a look around. "What do you think, Ed?"
"It seems good, my lord," Edvard replied.
"And how do you feel about this agreement?"
The butler had been part of the negotiations. Until then Edvard had served under the Hird's wing, but Alva, with her old blood and the proper authority, had managed to tear him from there and bring him into the crown's sphere. Hrafn suspected that had not come cheap, he knew Edvard was far too valuable to have been moved without cost.
"As before, my lord," the old man replied, bowing. "I feel honored."
Hrafn let the answer pass, for he would never completely understand men like Edvard. There was in him a devotion to the office that bordered on enthusiasm, and Hrafn did not know whether that was virtue, madness or merely habit. He himself would never be capable of living like that, but people chose strange purposes for themselves. His was not grand either, he only wanted to go on living in a minimally decent manner and die of old age, preferably sleeping. Which at that point, was already beginning to seem too great an ambition.
"Let us go up, Ed—"
"Elevated voroir," called a servant, bowing.
Hrafn turned his face to him, making the fellow tremble quite a bit.
"There is a hersir at the door. Leif. He wishes to see you."
Hrafn fell silent for an instant, before sinking lightly into the blessing. The hersir's presence came clear among the others, heavy and oppressive, while he waited out there. Hrafn pushed the sense a little further to judge better and regretted it at the same instant, his head throbbed, with his mind being twisted as he tried to push his gifts upon the Hersir.
"Elevated voroir," called another servant.
But Hrafn raised his hand before he completed the sentence, he already knew what it was about. Other presences had appeared outside the gate, they were weaker and more common, yet far too confident in their own steps to be simple plebeians, and he suspected he knew who it was.
"Could they not have let me rest a little?" he asked.
"It seems not, my lord," Edvard replied.
The butler was already in motion before even finishing the sentence, he turned to the servants, gave quick orders with his eyes and began to arrange, in a few gestures, all the courtesy that a hersir of the Hird and a noble lady would judge due. Hrafn watched the speed with which the man transformed invasion into reception and concluded, not for the first time, that Edvard would probably manage to serve tea with elegance in the middle of a fire.